For Cole Custer and Ford, the long wait for a NASCAR Xfinity Series win in 2024 is over.
Custer won the Explore The Pocono Mountains 225 at Pocono Raceway on Saturday, July 13, getting his first win of the season as well the first for Ford in the NXS this year, holding off advances from Justin Allgaier and William Byron.
Custer maintained the lead on a restart with four laps to go, despite some attempts by Allgaier to get past the No. 00.
Allgaier took second, while Byron was third. Sheldon Creed and Taylor Gray rounded out the top five.
AJ Allmendinger, Austin Hill, Parker Kligerman, Sammy Smith and Sam Mayer completed the top 10 in sixth through 10th, respectively.
The yellow flag came out seven times on Saturday, and it did not take long for the first caution of the day for Dawson Cram losing brakes and hitting the turn 1 in his No. 74 Mike Harmon Racing.
The race went green through the end of stage one, with Allgaier cruising to the green-and-white checkered flag by over four seconds ahead of Custer and Chandler Smith.
Under the ensuing caution, Allgaier and the No. 7 had a problem on pit road, getting hit with a equipment interference penalty when one of their tires rolled into a neighboring pit box. As a result, Allgaier lost his track position and restarted in the back.
Stage two saw one caution on lap 28 for debris coming from a flat tire on Byron’s No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
From there, Custer took the stage two win, beating out Chandler Smith, Hill, Riley Herbst and Ryan Sieg. Allgaier and Byron bounced back to 10th and 12th from their respective issues.
The race went back green on lap 47, but it did not stayed that way long as a multi-car accident in turn 1 slowed the field back down. Alpha Prime Racing teammates Ryan Ellis and Brennan Poole were among those involved.
Under that caution, JR Motorsports teammates Allgaier, Sammy Smith and Brandon Jones made a call for pit for fuel and try and stretch it to the end.
On the lap 51 restart, Allmendinger nearly spun on the turn 1 apron but kept his No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet pointed in the right direction, so the race stayed green.
After a round of green flag pit stops, Stephen Mallozzi stalled just off of turn two to bring the caution back out on lap 68. Under the yellow, Allgaier and Sammy Smith and Custer stayed out while many others pitted for tires and fuel.
Custer’s 15-lap fresher tires took effect as he made what proved to be the race-winning pass on Allgaier just before the race’s final caution for Shane van Gisbergen spinning out following contact from Mayer. That set the stage for Custer to hold off the field during one final four-lap run to the checkered.
Xfinity Results From Pocono
Next week, the NASCAR Xfinity Series goes to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for their first time on the oval since 2019. Coverage starts on Saturday, July 20 at 3:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
About the author
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
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